This invention relates in general to router guides for use in positioning and guiding pre-existing routers in the routing and cutting of workpieces, and in particular to guides that enable a router to float freely within a range over the workpiece.
Routing by means of hand-held routers following templates is well known. Typically, straight edges or curvilinear shaped edges are clamped to a workpiece and the router is pressed against the straight edge or curvilinear shaped edge to make a like cut in the workpiece. Also, a router may employ a positioner arm that follows an edge or a groove in a template, allowing the router to make a cut which follows the edge or template groove. These methods have the disadvantage of requiring extreme concentration and control of the hand-held router in order to ensure the router accurately follows the desired path. Almost inevitably, at some point within the operator's reach, a momentary loss of control will occur, leaving an unwanted cut in the workpiece. A router guide, such as those in the Davison U.S. Pat. No. 4,742,853 and the Meinhart U.S. Pat. No. 5,052,454 help with this problem by making it easier to use templates and guide surfaces but still leave the operator with the problem of trying to control a hand-held router against a template of some sort. Additionally, the depth of cut must be set for these guides by adjusting the router bit in the router, or by means of shims or spacers for the router to move on as it makes its cuts. The Davison router guide is primarily for making dado type slots, such as those used for shelving. The Cotton U.S. Pat. No. 4,194,543 is a router guide which does away with the hand-held router disadvantages, but by its design is primarily for commercial use in making parallel longitudinal and lateral cuts in large panels or doors automatically by an indexing apparatus in which stops must be set at locations that have to be pre-determined. It was not designed to follow a template to make curvilinear cuts.
This invention overcomes these disadvantages.
Other advantages and attributes of this invention will be readily discernable upon a reading of the text hereinafter.